Science Lesson Using Virtual Experiment

SCIENCE LESSON USING VIRTUAL EXPERIMENT Day:

Saturday

Date:

17th October 2009

Time:

10:30 – 11:30 (1 hour)

School:

Sekolah Rendah Tumpuan Telisai, Tutong II

Year:

5

Number of pupils:

8 (3 boys and 5 girls).

Topic:

Energy and Forces

Sub-topic:

Friction

Taught by: 1. Norazlina bte Haji Othman 08B1035 2. Ninesuzrinah bte Hanafi 08B1044 3. Nur Firzanah bte Abdullah Jilin 08B1041 4. Tinidiana bte Haji Boharuddin 08B1048

Below is our LESSON PLAN: Objectives: At the end of the lesson, pupils will be able to: i)

Explain how friction works and how it relates to motion and force.

ii) Identify by experimenting whether a surface will have more or less friction. iii) Answer the worksheet given correctly.

Set Induction:

 Teacher discusses pupils’ prior knowledge on ‘Friction’ by asking

questions such as:  What is Friction?  What does it do?

 How does it work?  Teacher asks the pupils to place their hands together and rub their

hands back and forth. As they are in the act of rubbing their hands back and forth, ask them to press their hands together harder and then even harder. Then teacher asks questions such as:  What did you noticed?  What did you feel? What happen to your hands? By relating their answers, teacher explains to them that what they did is ‘Friction’. Stage 1:  Teacher shows the virtual experiment on ‘Friction’ from http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/science/physical_processes/frict ion/play.shtml  As the teacher demonstrating the virtual experiment, teacher also

explains to the pupils how to use mouse track so that they have idea how to do the activity on the virtual experiment.  Teacher divides the pupils into 4 pairs. Each pair will be monitored by 1 teacher.  Each pupil is given an opportunity to do the virtual experiment.  As the pupils do the virtual experiment, pupils also discuss the

experiment and questions on the virtual experiment with the teacher.  Teacher asks the pupils which surfaces give more or less friction and

explain why they choose their answers. Stage 2: 

Teacher gives the pupils worksheet on ‘Friction’.

Teacher explains what the pupils have to do:



 Read the instructions. 

For question 1(a), teacher asks the pupils to push the toy car on the surfaces given (carpet, sand, tile, stones and grass). Then, arrange the surfaces from fastest to slowest.

 For question 1(b), teacher asks them to feel the texture of the surfaces and identify whether the surface is smooth or rough.  For question 1(c), the pupils will be asked to choose which texture makes the toy car moves fastest.  For question 2, the pupils will be asked to observe the pictures given. They have to choose and write the correct answer on the spaces provided. Closure: Teacher recaps what the pupils have learnt by asking questions to test their understanding on ‘Friction’: 



What is it called when two objects rub together? (Friction).



What does friction produce? (Heat).



What makes the objects hard to rub together? (Resistance).

Here are our RESULTS: Set Induction (Discuss on their prior knowledge):  Most of the pupils had no ideas of what friction was all about.  Some of the pupils thought that friction was similar to “fraction”. While

some pupils thought that the process of friction had something to do with “gravity”.  After the teacher asked the pupils to do a simple practical on rubbing two

hands together, they were able to explain the outcome which was heat but they were still unable to connect with the word “friction”.

Stage 1 (Science experiment using virtual experiment):  Due to less exposure on using technologies, only 1 pupil needed more

help from teacher to do the activity using virtual experiment even though teacher had explained how to use the mouse track.  The other pupils had no difficulties on handling the computers.  They followed the instructions correctly and answered well.

Stage 2 (Science experiment using real objects – doing worksheet):

Figure 1: Graph of pupils’ achievement in answering ‘Friction’ worksheet.  From the graph shown above, degree of difficulty was question 1 (a). It

was the most difficult question compared to the others. This is because the question involved many types of surfaces (glass, carpet, tile, sand and stone) that created confusion among the pupils to arrange from the fastest to the slowest movement of the toy car.

 The pupils had less or no difficulties in answering the rest of the questions since all of them managed to answer them correctly. Closure (Recap what they have learnt):  The pupils were able to explain the term ‘friction’ and how it worked.

For our CONCLUSION:  After the lesson, the pupils were able to explain what the term ‘Friction’ is and how it works.  The pupils enjoyed doing both virtual and real experiments. After the lesson, they wanted to share their experience to their Science teacher what they have done. They hope they can do more with their Science teachers. Strengths of the lesson  Both strategies (virtual and practical activities) benefited the pupils. They understood better as they experienced by doing the experiment themselves.  For virtual activity, they were able to see or imagine what was going to happen to the toy car based on their previous experiences.  The activity motivated them since the lesson used technologies. Weaknesses of the lesson  Amount of energy for pushing the toy car was applied differently.  Time taken and distance were not measured.  In term of connection, internet access was poor and not available. Recommendation  Before introducing the topic ‘Friction’, it will be interesting if the teacher asks the pupils to do a class project on building model of vehicles that have different types of wheels. For example, using woods, metals and rubber tyres.

 In order to give some ideas to pupils about ‘Friction’, a short video clip on History of Wheels can be shown.  To get an accurate result, the toy car should be pushed with equal energy. Teacher should also ask them to measure distance from starting point to where the car stops and time taken for the car moves.  Teacher should always prepare with their portable broadband/modem and extra laptops so that the lesson runs smoothly as what is planned even though the server is down during the lesson.